CSR and Corporate Communications
March 6, 2009 by admin
Filed under Editorials
After having read Terrence Fernandez’s column in the Sun today, it’s little wonder that the public views the corporate giving with huge suspicion. Fernandez described,
… I was utterly disgusted upon discovering recently that boardroom tactics were used on a group of cancer survivors by the representative of a corporate giant.
Apparently they were told that if the company which is sponsoring certain items for an up-coming event does not get the publicity it is entitled to, then it would need to review its contribution to the cancer association. Now, this threat I understand did not come from the CEO or MD of the company which I am told are perfectly all right with the minimal publicity. This is because it was agreed that the focus should be on the group of brave men and women who beat cancer and continue to inspire others who live with or are afflicted by the disease. No, the order came from someone further down the pecking order who felt she was doing her bosses a favour (and by that advancing her own career) by taking advantage of the sick.
What bothers the CSR Digest is that the marketing/PR person involved did not seem to care that a journalist knew of this situation, and might write about it. And Fernandez has been very discreet in not naming names, more likely because of his respect for the company rather than the “little Napoleon” involved.
It is perhaps time that businesses and marketers are taken to task in their activities. Is the giving a secondary priority? Are the column inches the main thing?
The CSR Digest intends to find out. From April to October 2009, the CSR Digest intends to run a media watch on random media on corporate charitable giving, then find out if the funds are actually disbursed to the intended organization or cause. Click here to find out more.◊
